Po Rome Tower

Site and name

The tower stands on one of two low hills beside each other at Hậu Sanh, a village of Phước Hữu commune^[1]. The commune lay in Ninh Phước district of Ninh Thuận province until Ninh Thuận merged into Khánh Hòa on 1 July 2025, and the tower is now given as being in Khánh Hòa^[1][2]. Đại biểu Nhân dân places it about 15 km from Phan Rang-Tháp Chàm^[3]. Wikidata records the site at latitude 11.5014 and longitude 108.8657^[4].

The Vietnamese name Po Rome is also written Pô Rômê and Po Romé, and the tower is known locally as tháp Hậu Sanh after the village^[1][3].

The tower

Po Rome is a square tower of three tiers, about 8 metres high, with a base nearly 8 metres on a side^[1][2]. The entrance faces east through a porch structure^[1]. On the walls the surviving decoration consists of two engaged pilasters at the corners of each face and blind doors in the middle of the other three faces^[1].

The pilasters have three parts: a plain base without applied ornament, a rectangular upright shaft and, at the corners of the capitals, projecting stone slabs carved as flames^[1]. Each blind door has a three-layered lancet pediment above a frame of three courses of pilasters; the pediments are hollowed to take a seated figure^[1]. The two upper tiers repeat the composition of the body, the third without the pointed corner blocks^[1].

The summit is a large stone shaped as a tower curved on four faces and decorated with incised lines^[1]. The interior is narrow and runs east to west; the porch has a timber ceiling^[1]. The Vietnamese Wikipedia article judges the building less refined than the older towers but still substantial brickwork^[1].

Images inside

Set between the middle of the chamber and the west wall is a stone image of King Po Rome about 1.2 metres high, placed under a timber canopy^[1]. Đại biểu Nhân dân describes the figure as carved with eight arms^[3].

The chamber also holds a half-length image about 0.75 metres high that the Cham call Queen Po Bia Sancan, of Ê Đê origin^[1][3]. A second structure outside the main tower is dedicated to the queen Sucih, also written Pra Sucih, and VietnamPlus records that it holds the tomb of Po Rome^[1][2].

King Po Rome

Po Rome is one of the Cham kings who were made into deities and given a tower of their own, a practice the Vietnamese Wikipedia article notes is unlike the dedication of most Cham towers to gods^[1]. VietnamPlus reports the Cham royal chronicles as giving him a reign of 24 years, from 1627 to 1651^[2], and Đại biểu Nhân dân describes him as the last independent king of Champa and credits him with bringing water to the fields and developing agriculture^[3].

VietnamPlus dates the tower to the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century^[2]; Đại biểu Nhân dân gives the early seventeenth century^[3]; the Vietnamese Wikipedia article gives the seventeenth century without narrowing it^[1].

Rites and protection

The tower is still in use. Cham communities hold ceremonies there on their festival days through the year^[1], and both fetched news sources record four annual observances set by the Cham calendar: Yuer Yang in the fourth month, Katê in the seventh, a commemoration of the mother in the ninth and the opening of the tower in the eleventh^[2][3].

The Ministry of Culture and Information, now the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, ranked the tower a national architectural and artistic relic in 1992^[2][3]. No fetched page gave the number of the ranking decision.